burrabadine mission community

news & events

Thursday
May032012

Recent radio interviews with Paul Roe

Paul Roe (our National Director) was recently interviewed by Leigh Hatcher for 'The Open House' broadcast/podcast about the background of Cornerstone Community ... you can access it here!

He was previously interviewed in 2007 by Sheridan Voysey some years earlier for the same show ... you can access that here as well.

Tuesday
Apr242012

touchstone autumn 2012

The latest Touchstone newsletter for Cornerstone is available here!

Friday
Mar302012

easter sunrise service at burrabadine ...

Friday
Mar022012

a report from the trip to Egypt-Jordan-Israel 2012

by Karen Moreton (& Andrew too!)

Today as I tirelessly slid five-hundred amazing photos into our new “Holy Land” album, I mused over two photos in particular. Can I briefly share their stories with you?

In comparison to the wonder of the gargantuan pyramids, the awe of The Lost City of Petra, or the sparkle of the freshly regilded Dome of the Rock, it was somewhat un-picturesque; but it touched my heart all the same. It was a photo of the toe of Andrew's sandshoe sneaking under a rope fence to touch a weathered, white-stone path. You see when we signed up for a ‘Footsteps of Jesus’ Tour we knew it was somewhat figurative. A tour of 21st Century Egypt, Jordan and Israel, travelling by A380 airbus and a luxury air-conditioned coach is not exactly a roman sandal experience! And yet the sneaking toe paints a thousand words; these are the authentic first century stairs Jesus climbed the night of his betrayal as he was led from Gethsemane to Jerusalem and so to his death. These are the very stairs he climbed in both resoluteness and anguish. This place, this path, this stair… my Lord walked here.

 

The other is a shot of our Bedouin guide Mustafa leading Ruth down Mt Sinai. Ruth is very open about the fact she is seventy-seven years young, and having served as a missionary in Somalia for many years, she is not a faint hearted soul. Now to understand the challenge of Mount Sinai you need this recipe: mix jet lag with a 1am wake up call, followed by a two hour camel ride, followed by an uphill hike in pitch blackness, pause for a breathtaking sunrise over the rugged Sinai wilderness (at high altitude and zero degrees) and then descend slippery, shaly rock for four hours - and throw in a tumble or two. That’s enough to knock up most seventy seven year olds don’t you think? So our Bedouin guide Mustafa finally grabbed Ruth’s arm and refused to take no for an answer. He continued to encourage her with these words over and over again, “Hold on to me more tightly…hold on to me more tightly!” Ruth declares that two things are true, “If it weren’t for Mustafa I’d still be stuck up Mount Sinai” and, “I think Mustafa showed me what God’s plan for my life has always been - I must hold on to HIM more tightly!”

 

 

I could show you 500 more photos and tell you twice that many stories but it would be to no avail. I just can’t express all that Holy Land is. In a few adjectives it is spectacular, fascinating, chaotic, inspiring, delicious, exotic, confronting, tender, awe-inspiring, surprising, ironic, stirring and fun! The people are precious, intriguing, welcoming and moving. They move me because despite millennia of suffering, faith and commitment, they don’t still know the One who loves them, lived among them, wept and bled for them. They have a messiah, a deliverer, a saviour… but they do not know him. Won’t you join with us in praying for the people of the Middle East, that they would come to know the true King of heaven and Lord of the Earth?

 

Oh, and put a visit to Egypt, Jordan and Israel on your bucket list!

 

Friday
Feb242012

our first 2012 intensive ... 10-13 April